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INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW WEIL
April 25, 1995
Janice Stensrude, Interviewer

Click here to read the article for which this interview was conducted.


Interviewer: I'm real impressed because I'm into medical consumerism—

Andrew Weil: Great.

and I think it's one of the most important contributions we've had in a while to that.

Well thanks. You know I think it's about time that this change happened. I think it's going to happen.

I did six months research on hormones and hysterectomy—

Uh hmm.

and all this stuff, and at the end of six months the only definite information I had for anybody was to be a better medical consumer.

Exactly.

I mean there was no exacting information.

Right. Exactly.

So I was real pleased with your book. I understand you're currently conducting a medical practice?

That's true. In Tucson, Arizona. It's part time because I'm also involved with teaching and writing. And the teaching I'm doing is trying to set up a training program for doctors who will do medicine the way that I think it should be done.

And you think there are a lot of people out there that are really interested in this?

Oh, we've been inundated with applications and requests for this. I think it's really an idea whose time has come.

That's wonderful. I'm glad to hear that. There are people who are already through medical school and want the additional training?

Yes, and also people thinking of going to medical school and people in medical school. I mean there's really widespread desire for this.

That's great. I'm real pleased to hear that. So how would you describe your practice in terms of comparing it to say a typical allopathic practice.

Well I say that I practice natural and preventive medicine, and I see people from all over. I would say that about ten percent of people who come to see me are well and they want preventive lifestyle counseling, which I think is great. And that percentage has been slowly growing over the years. Of the remaining 90 percent of people who come to see me, about half have what I call routine problems—things like headaches and sinus conditions and anxiety and arthritis—and in those cases I think I really practice alternative medicine. I'm telling people things that they can do on their own and in place of the standard treatments which I think are— I think the things that I recommend are cheaper, safer, and more effective. In the remaining group of people I see are people with very serious illnesses, and about half of those have common serious illness—things like breast cancer, multiple sclerosis. The other half have very odd diseases that nobody knows what to do with, and, as a group, those people are very challenging and interesting, and I think I end up there being mostly a counselor, giving people ideas and information for how to build intelligent combinations of selected use of standard therapies and selected use of alternative therapies.

Uh hmm.

And of the kinds of approaches that I use with people— Well, first of all I take a lot of time to ask questions. You know I have the luxury of being able to take time, so I really ask a lot of questions to get at all aspects of their lifestyle. I usually ask people to make some changes in how they're eating. I recommend selected use of vitamins and supplements. I recommend a lot of botanical remedies because that's my area of particular expertise. I teach most patients breathing exercises to help them relax. I give people reading to do. I make referrals to a wide range of other kinds of practitioners, sometimes to doctors in standard medicine, and very frequently to people outside of it, especially to traditional Chinese doctors, naturopaths, osteopaths, who do manipulation, hypnotherapists, various kinds of massage and bodyworkers, acupuncturists. So that's basically how I operate.

Well that's good. Do you use the cranial technique that you learned from Dr. Fulford?

I'm not trained in that myself, but I refer to— We have a couple of osteopaths who practice that in Tucson, and that's a therapy that I really like very much, so I send people to that very frequently.

That seems to be effective in a wide variety of things.

In a wide variety. It's noninvasive, really can't hurt, and I've seen it do an amazing amount of good for people.

That's great. One thing that caught my eye was drinking lots of water.

Yep.

Because I see such a wide variety of recommendations on that. It's from 6 glasses, some people say it must be 8, others say it must be 12.

Right. You know I tend not to recommend in terms of glasses of water. I usually just tell people to drink more and to watch your urine output. You know you want to increase your water intake until you notice that you're urinating more frequently.

Like me, I can produce a couple of liters a day whether I'm drinking water or not, so when I drink water I really spend the day in the bathroom, but I still need that extra water.

Yeah. And I think that's especially true for people living in hot climates. Or for people who are exposed to toxins, pollutants, 'cause it's just one of the most effective aspects of the body's natural healing system is to filter the blood that way.

Well that's interesting. Well Houston, we just found out a couple of months ago, is now the most polluted city in the nation.

Air?

Yes.

Really.

That took us all by surprise.

Huh!

Because we're all still sniveling about how bad Los Angeles is but we have long since surpassed them.

Uh huh. I'm surprised to hear that.

Because we haven't been aware of what they've been aware of in California for so long.

Right. Uh hmm.

You commented that you take supplements, too. Do you feel like you're taking that by the handful or in more modest—

No, I try to do it modestly, and I mostly use the antioxidant vitamins and a few other things. But you know I don't like the idea of people taking handfuls of pills, but I think there is clear evidence for the therapeutic benefit of some of these things, and I think they're also, in the long run, cheaper and more effective than many of the drug therapies that are out there.

Right. And so you're more— it sounds like you're more concerned about environmental pollutants than anything else.

Definitely. I mean I think this is a big issue today, and it's air, it's water, it's contaminants in the food that we eat and drugs that we take. You know I think this is really something that people need to be informed about and take reasonable precautions against.

Are you working on any special projects now?

Well two things. One is this training program for physicians at the University of Arizona, which we think will be really the first thing of its kind in the country, and our hope is that the people who graduate from this are going to set up similar programs at other institutions. And I'm working on a book for kids taking a lot of my philosophy of preventive health and trying to put this in a form that will inspire kids to begin building healthy lifestyles at an early age.

Are you familiar with the Japanese children's books. One's called Everybody Poops.

No!

And the other one's called The Holes in Your Face.

No! [chuckle]

Which is about noses and boogers.

Really. No I haven't seen them.

I've seen those two and then there's a third one I haven't seen yet.

I'll take a look for them.

Because they've just come out in English and one catalog is carrying them. The catalog called Brainstorm is carrying them.

Do they look good?

Yeah. Yeah. They're the— they've been bestsellers in Japan for 15 years.

Really. Great. I'll get hold of them.

Yeah and the third one has to do with passing gas.

Great!

I bought them for my three-year-old granddaughter.

Oh good, I will get hold of them. Where did you find them?

I found them in the Brainstorm catalog and I haven't seen them anyplace else.

I will take a look for them.

It kind of fits in with what you're saying. You're going to talk to kids about things that people don't talk to them about.

Yeah exactly.

And they're things they're interested in. They're really interested in their bodies.

Good.

Okay. Oh I know what I wanted to ask you is on things away from this— I get involved in whatever my project is and forget everything else. Do you read anything for pleasure? Do you have time for hobbies?

I don't have as much time as I'd like. I read— you know occasionally I'll read a novel. Although I tend to read more nonfiction for pleasure than I do fiction. There are a few magazines that I read. I read National Geographic and you know there's a few things that I read, but mostly, you know since I end up doing so much reading connected with my work, I think that my main sources of pleasure are not reading.

Uh hmm. So you get out in nature a lot?

Yeah. I garden a lot, which is one of my main activities.

Are you an organic gardener?

Yes.

What kind of crops do you get to grow there?

Well you know we can grow year round in Tucson, so I like to grow both flowers and vegetables. Right now, just about a month ago, I planted a lot of melons, squashes, tomatoes, cucumbers, sunflowers, dahlias. You know I have a real jungly garden with everything mixed up.

Well you have young children, too, don't you?

I have a girl who's three and a half and then three stepchildren who live with us.

So you waited. You spent a lot of time world traveling, searching.

I did. And I'm not sorry I waited. I feel more ready to parent now than I would have before.

But you were just busy.

I was busy!

So at this point you're not looking for world travels and going into the jungle.

No. No. I feel I've done that. I will go off for specific purposes. You know if there's some specific reason to go somewhere for a limited period of time I'll do that.

Okay. I think we've covered questions. And your book covered so much information I don't think I need to rehash that with you.

Great.

And I'm glad I was able to get in touch with you.

Yeah, I'm glad I got your message.


[Dr. Weil was on the road promoting Spontaneous Healing when his publisher gave me an appointment time to call at the hotel where he was staying at the time. His publisher failed to inform him of the appointment, and when I called, I had to leave a message.]

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